This course is for curious students and aspiring authors with a passion for writing for young readers. Participate in a dynamic online community of writers as you experiment with your own writing and develop your voice. This course will guide you with a combination of video lectures, online readings, peer reviews, and guest appearances from world-renowned children’s authors. As you work through the writing exercises, you will give and receive feedback from your peers and gain tools and techniques for improving your writing.
During this course you will identify stories that matter to you, explore cultural significance and boundaries, and shape your identity as a writer; become familiar with standard elements of narrative (character, setting, plot, theme, language, dialogue, point of view); reflect on your own work and practice essential self-editing skills; see the different ways in which words and art interact, and the possibilities of longer narrative forms; come away with practical insights into publishing options; and create a plan for pursuing your enthusiasm for writing. By the end of the course, you will have ten to twelve extracts of writing that you can develop into a portfolio.
Join a dynamic community of many voices from around the world. Find inspiration in your own voice, heart, and place so that you can tell the stories for young readers you’ve always wanted to tell.

CT

This seems like a basic course but they give you a lot of useful information and it is very well done. The author interviews are informative and interesting too. I highly recommend the course.

SE

Aug 10, 2015

Filled StarFilled StarFilled StarFilled StarFilled Star

It definitely inspired my writing, as well as improved my techniques. The many interviews with other authors gave someone another view on how to write, transform and present one's own work.

Из урока

Publishing

In this final module you’ll learn about different ways that you can get your work published and into the hands of young readers. We have included information about a range of different publishing methods available to you, from traditional print publishing to digital publishing. You can also listen to our guest writers talking about how they publish their own work. This MOOC is just a starting point for your writing life. You will soon be ready to join a global network of writers.

Преподаватели

David Hill

Author

Maria Gill

Author

Alex Alexandrou

Dr

Текст видео

Hello again. It's great to see you on this introduction to publishing module. It's getting close to the time to show your story to other people and start thinking about how you want to publish your writing for young readers. This part is quite exciting because you're now sending your work out in to the world where your intended readers can start to enjoy your writing as much as you've enjoyed creating it. It may seem a little scary to let go of your manuscript. But if you've worked on the editing the best you can, it deserves to be read by others even if that is your family or friends, colleagues, or writing buddies. You might also want people who you don't know to read it. We will talk about the different publishing options available to you. Such as self-publishing and traditional publishing. And the differences between publishing your work digitally or in print. You might feel a little overwhelmed when you begin investigating who to send your manuscript to because you have so many choices from print to digitizing to working with educational publishers and freelancing. You have a lot of options nowadays. And we're going to show you what is available. We're first looking at forms of print publishing. You can send your work off to a traditional publisher. That's a term used for publishers who publish the book for you and pay all the costs. Traditional publishers have been around since the 1500s. That's why they're called traditional. It might be a local publisher or a multi-national publisher who publishes your book all around the world. You can also self-publish it. That's when you publish it under your own name and do everything yourself, or work with freelance editors, proofreaders, and designers to make the book. Alternatively you might have your manuscript published with a vanity publisher. That's a publisher who shares the costs and marketing with you. You will find out the differences between these types of print publishing in this module. Next, we're talking about the many ways you can digitally publish your books and forms of digital publishing. From eBooks, EPUBs, applications and PDFs to publishing it on social media, blogs and web sites. It sounds a little technical, but really it's only the types of software that can be used to read your digital book on something like an e-reader, tablet, smart phone or your computer. Many people think digital publishing is the best way to publish, but I'll show you why you're most likely see digital books and printed books in the future. We're also covering publishing opportunities as there are many ways you can get freelance work Including educational writing. You'll read about why educational writing is different to other forms of writing. We've also put a case forward for why it's worthwhile entering competitions. You will find out about mentorships and why they can help your career. Some of you might be thinking, well that's all very well, but how do we approach publishers? We've got you covered there too. We've got examples of an inquiry letter, a proposal, and a resume. We also discuss whether you should try to get an agent and the benefits of pitching at a conference. Lastly, we're going to talk about where to from now. You don't have to go it alone. There are organizations you can join and critique groups who can support you. We'll suggest ways you can do that. Near the end of this course, we'll suggest you give each other encouragement for your future goals. We'll have a guest author sharing their publishing tips too. We'll also show you how to write a draft inquiry letter to a publisher for one of your manuscripts. I've even given you an example in the course materials area that you can look at. I'm excited to get started on this topic. I've got so much to tell you, and I just know you're wondering how to begin exploring your publishing journey in this writing for young readers MOOC.